The present invention is directed to air conditioners and, more particularly, to a protective grille for the condenser coil of an air conditioner.
Air conditioning units such as so-called "window room air conditioners" are commonly used for residential and similar applications and generally include closed refrigeration circuits having an evaporator and a condenser. The unit is normally divided by a partition into an evaporator section and a condenser section. The evaporator section communicates with the room air to be conditioned and the condenser section communicates with external air such as outdoor air. Refrigerant flows through a refrigerant circuit absorbing heat from the room air at the evaporator and discharging heat energy to the external air at the condenser. The conventional refrigeration circuit is completed by the addition of a compressor, an expansion device, and the appropriate connections between the components.
Such an air conditioning unit usually includes a basepan supporting all of the components and an outer housing surrounding the entire unit. The front of the evaporator, or indoor section, includes an indoor grille, which has openings therein for directing warm indoor air into the evaporator and discharge openings therein for directing air back into the room. The outdoor section of the housing includes a plurality of openings in the sides and top thereof, which serve as inlet openings for cooling air which flows into the outdoor section and outwardly therefrom after passing through the condenser coil, which is mounted vertically in the back of the outdoor section.
Because the condenser coil includes a multitude of fragile heat exchange fins thereon, protective louvers or a grille of some sort is commonly provided to overlie the back of the condenser coil to protect the fins from damage. It is common practice in larger air conditioning units for the back of the housing of the unit to be substantially open and for the protective grille to be formed from a plurality of perpendicularly extending wire segments, which are welded to wall sections forming the perimeter of the open back of the housing. Such grilles must be welded to the housing prior to applying the finish paint coat to the housing.
It is considered desirable to be able to fabricate the housing of an air conditioning unit from a pre-painted sheet metal material. It is further considered desirable to be able to install a protective grille to a housing formed from a pre-painted metal material without the necessity of welding the grille to the housing. Such welding would require removal of paint from the housing in the area in which the grille would be welded thereto and further would require touch-up painting as the heat of the welding would damage the preapplied paint.